Of the 160 million smartphones in the United States today, five brands dominate the market, based on the latest report by of the research firm comScore.

Apple has topped the list of smartphone manufacturers in the country with a 41.6 percent share in January, a hair better than the posted three month average in October 2013 pegged at 40.6 percent. Samsung followed its archrival from a distance with a 26.7 percent market share or a 1.3 percent increase from the October figures of 25.4 percent.

The two market leaders are preparing for a showdown in court after settlement talks about  patent infringement issues failed in February. The trial that will cover several products is set to kick off at the end of March.

LG came in at third with 6.9 percent share, reflecting a tiny improvement of its average of  6.6 percent in the last report. Both Motorola and HTC lost shares of minus 0.6 percent and a minus 1.3 percent drop, respectively.

Android is the preferred mobile operating system of Americans with a 51.7 percent three-month average market share as of January, said the comCast report. The Google software suffered a 0.5 percent drop as Apple gained a whole percentage point to inch closer. The iOS was used by 41.6 percent of the market. The rest of the field is just too far behind to cause any trouble. Blackberry had a 3.1 percent share, skidding 0.5 percent down. Microsoft and Symbian are steady on fourth and fifth with 3.2 percent and 0.2 percent market share.

The comCast survey also looked into the top smartphone properties and mobile applications. In terms of mobile browsing and app usage, Google sites ruled with 89.4 percent reach. It is closely followed by Facebook with 88.6 percent and Yahoo sites on third with a reach of 86.2 percent.

The most used smartphone app is the mobile app of Facebook with 77.6 percent reach. Google Play came in second and YouTube third with 52.4 percent and 49.7 percent reach, respectively.

The results reported by comScore were based on the data from its Mobile Metrix and MobiLens survey with the latter limiting the study to users 13 years old or older and the former limiting the study to iOS and Android platform users 18 years and above.